Лоуренс Блок - Random Walk - A Novel for a New Age

“Let’s see, what’s today? Today’s Monday. No, tomorrow’s not so good, Mark, not for lunch. And neither’s Wednesday. Hey, I want to see you, though. You say you’re at the Holiday Inn? The one right downtown here?”

“No, the one east of town. Why?”

“No reason. Look, why don’t you come by my office tomorrow around eleven? I got to take an ol’ boy across the river to Tinker’s around noon and buy him a big plate of catfish, but at least we can swap a few lies before then. That suit you?”

“Why not?”

He drove to Tinker’s himself that night and ate catfish and hush puppies and hot apple dumplings. His table was right at the glass wall, and he looked out across the Red River at Texas on the other side. He spent a long time over dinner but it was still light out when he left. He drove straight back to his motel and watched television until he was tired enough to sleep.

There was nothing on the late news about the chambermaid in Abilene. In the morning he checked the Wichita Falls paper and didn’t see anything. On the way to George Kingland’s office he found a bank of newspaper vending machines and bought an Abilene paper in one of them. There was a short story right on the front page reporting the death of Wanda Rae Johnston of Sagerton, Texas, who had been found in a second-floor unit at the Lamplighter Motor Inn with her neck broken. While there was the suspicion of foul play, police had not yet ruled out the possibility of accidental death.

What did they think, he wondered. That she’d climbed onto the dresser and fallen off?

He chucked the paper in a trash can and went to keep his appointment. Kingland Mortgage Corp. had storefront offices in a small shopping plaza not far from the center of town. He parked right in front, walked through the glass door, and his heart leapt in his breast.

There was a girl at the desk and she looked up at his approach. She had a little fox face with high cheekbones and a straight narrow nose and a pointed chin. Her hair was the color of clover honey and her large well-spaced eyes were a light brown with a lot of yellow in it. Her brows were plucked, her cheeks rouged, her mouth full-lipped and red. She was wearing a sunflower-yellow dress that left her arms bare to the shoulder; its scoop neckline exposed the tops of her breasts.

The description might have fit a thousand girls, but there was more to her than the words could convey. A musky sexuality emanated from her in waves. She gave off heat, and when she looked up at him and smiled, the message that radiated forth was one of infinite desirability and infinite desire.

He had never wanted anyone more.

She asked if she could help him. He gave his name and said he was expected. She went through the frosted-glass door to Kingland’s office and he watched her rolling gait as she crossed the room. Either she walked that way on purpose, conscious of its effect, or it was her natural mode. Both possibilities were equally alluring.

She was in there for almost a minute, then emerged to tell him Mr. Kingland would see him. He passed within a foot of her on the way to the office, and he could swear he felt her aura brush him in passing, sending an electric current racing through his body.

George Kingland was in his late forties, tall and well muscled, a-golfer and tennis player. He was mostly bald, and he kept his remaining hair trimmed to short crewcut length. He got up and came around the desk to shake hands with Mark.

“You look good,” he said. “Lost a few pounds since last time, didn’t you?”

“I may have.”

“Well, it looks good on you. Or off you, come to think of it. Sit down, old son. You fixing to buy up some more of Wichita Falls?”

“Just passing through, really.”

“And you thought you’d stop for a visit? Well, it’s good to see you.” He lowered his voice, flashed a shy smile. “Been some changes around here,” he said. “You happen to notice Missy?”

“Is that her name?”

“Uh-huh. What do you think of her?”

“Pretty girl.”

“You’d say so, would you? Is that door closed? Missy Flanders. Twenty-six years old, married to a shop foreman over at Waco-Eggert, lives in a crackerbox tract house over in Archer County. Mark, move your chair closer, I don’t want to shout. Guess who’s fucking her?”

“Her husband?”

Kingland chuckled. “He’s crazy as a shithouse rat if he isn’t, but I guess she needs more than he’s giving her. She’s my lunch date every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And that’s why I’m losing weight, boy, because the only kind of eating we do don’t put weight on you. Three days a week we’re over at the Holiday Inn. I swear they ought to give me a rate.”

“That’s why you wanted to know which one I was staying at.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to run into you tomorrow. I didn’t know I was gonna say anything, but I had to tell somebody. You know how that is?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s have another look at her.” He picked up the phone, pressed the intercom button. “Say, Missy,” he said, “could you pull the Greystone Estates file folder and bring it to me, please?”

She came in a few moments later carrying a manila folder. Kingland had her wait while he pretended to check something, and she stood alongside him. Mark saw the man’s arm move, and he guessed Kingland was touching Missy’s leg, but her expression never changed.

When she had left, closing the door after her, Kingland let out his breath in a sigh. He said, “Something, ain’t she?”

Mark nodded.

“You couldn’t see from where you’re sitting, but I had my hand up her skirt. She don’t wear panties. She was dripping wet.”

Don’t tell me this, he thought.

There was a photo cube on the big desk, and Kingland picked it up and turned it to look at a picture of his wife. He said, “You’ve met Gwen, haven’t you?”

“Yes, the last time I was in town. You had me over to dinner.”

“Fine woman, beautiful woman. But I have to tell you, Mark, I never been close to anything like this little one out there. There’s nothing she won’t try and nothing she don’t enjoy. You know what we did yesterday?” He didn’t, but he soon learned, and in considerable detail. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” George said.

Neither do I, thought Mark. Neither do I.

One time about four or five years ago a doctor had given him Dexedrine spansules to curb his appetite. He didn’t like them and never had the prescription renewed. But once he had evidently taken one pill before the effects of the last one had entirely worn off, and he’d been speedy and jittery, and he was like that now.

He couldn’t get the damn girl out of his mind. He had never reacted so strongly to a woman, and all of that was made a hundred times worse by the conversation he’d had with George. And there was no way he could lay a hand on her. He knew her, he’d met her in George’s office, and it was a greater risk than he was prepared to take to kill anyone to whom he could be that readily connected.

Even if he was willing to break his own rule, there was no way he could get to the woman. Her husband dropped her off each morning on the way to work. He picked her up each night and drove her home, and according to George he never let her out of his sight. George had her for lunch three times a week, and the rest of the time she was either working or with her husband.

So he couldn’t have her, and he couldn’t stop wanting to. He had never been obsessed like this before, not to anything approaching this extent. Some women had moved him powerfully, so that he could barely resist acting on his urges, but if he did hold himself back, if he did overcome the immediate impulse, then he could remain the master of the desire. That high-yellow chambermaid at the Holiday Inn, for instance; he found her extremely attractive, he would have loved to do her, but once he had placed her firmly out of bounds she remained there, and when he thought of her or even looked at her now, it was with appreciation but with detachment. She was safe, and consequently he was safe.